testing trackback

Its been tough to make the Trackback feature of blogs work for me. I reference so many sites in here & it would be good have my blog entries be displayed in those sites. About.com had an article on Trackback. Testing it out here. Let me see how it works.

http://www.shaicoggins.com/index.php/trackback/63/72DpJBmU/

Flash agitations in Chennai

There was more rain today morning in Chennai & the roads got flooded as usual. Traffic on the Tambaram-Velachery strech got affected due to agitations. Not sure what their actual demands were. There were lots of office-goers walking towards Vijaya Nagar, Velachery today morning around 9 am. Anyone has more news on this?

All banks are the same across the world

Seth Godin writes :

A door to door salesman just walked into our offices in Irvington.

Tough job.

A job usually reserved for people selling advertising or janitorial services.

This was an assistant Vice President at Citibank. He's wandering the halls, door by door, trying to sell business checking accounts.

We get pestered in India too by banks like HDFC, HSBC cold-calling us to offer 'free' credit cards, personal/home loans etc. Hmm, the banks have too much money. Wondering whether its the signs of a good or bad economy?

Fall & after

Had the first fall from my Scooty Pep in a minor accident last week. As I turned a corner, a car hit the rear (not so fastly, thank God) & I fell over. Thankfully it was just bruises & no broken bones. I'd put the indicator & there was the beep coming but the light had failed. Apparently, the recent rains had a role to play, shorting the circuitry.

All's well now & my Scooty looks great after the service.

The BusinessWeek Maze

Been to the Techbeat section of Business Week y'day. There was this article summary by Rob Hof titled "Meet the Web Smart 50". Wanted to see the companies that made up the Top 50 and gleefully clicked the link. Only to be taken to a page which had all the info except the one I wanted. There was this topic named "Best of the New Web" under the TECH SPECIAL REPORTS which when clicked led to this page. And there there was a link under the EDITOR's PICKS topic which finally had what I was looking for. Hm, nice experience. Hope I'll not be troubled to visit BusinessWeek any time soon again.

Another Microsoft in the making?

Ethan Stock of Zvents is pissed about Google. Shows the increasingly visible "I'm BIG & I don't care about my customers" trap that Google has fallen into.

Amazon Pages

Amazon has announced a book-scanning project ... The Amazon plan will scan copyrighted books and let readers search through them. It will offer paid online access to parts or all of the book, and the payment will depend on the book, and on how much of the book someone wants available.

There's also an option to buy the physical book, and then have access to the full text of the book online as well.

This keeps everyone happy. Copyright holders are paid fairly for their works, and readers can buy only portions of books they want to use.

With Google Print mired in legal battles, this slightly modified move by Amazon has surprised everyone. More at http://www.networkingpipeline.com/blog/archives/2005/11/amazon_beats_go.html

ps: Google now scans public domain books that were never subject to copyright or whose copyright has expired. For books not in the public domain, Google shows small snippets of the work unless the publisher or copyright holder has given them permission to show more.

Sensationalism

A news article in chennaionline.com says

Production in the Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) in Cuddalore district was affected as water had entered three of the mines, an NLC official said.

An NLC official said that? What crap. NLC has got open mines and there is no point of water 'entering' the mines! Water is always there at all times of the year in almost, if not, all mines - whether open or closed. When you dig earth out to depth of 40 metres & more, ground water comes out & there is a separate Ground Water Control (GWC) department at NLC whose sole job is to pump water off & use it else where. Usually, during heavy rains, the water levels rise & the GWC folks find it difficult to pump the excess water. Thats what happens whenever it rains & not as these guys report.

Update : Seems chennaionline isn't the only one reporting this. outlookindia too has the same thing to say. Now, combine sensationalism to plagiarism (who copied who?) & you have such poor journalism.

A noble gesture

The organs of twelve-year-old Ahmed Ismail Khatib, a palestinian boy mistakenly killed by Israeli army have been donated to 6 Israelites.

The BBC reports:

Ahmed's kidneys, liver, heart and lungs were transplanted into Israelis including Jews, Arabs and a Druse girl, medical officials said.

The girl, aged 12 and from Israel's Bedouin Arab minority, received Ahmed's heart, bringing to an end a five-year wait for a transplant.

Her father, Riad Gadban, called the donation a "gesture of love" and said his daughter was regaining strength after the operation.

Salutations to the boy's parents.

A noble gesture

The organs of twelve-year-old Ahmed Ismail Khatib, a palestinian boy mistakenly killed by Israeli army have been donated to 6 Israelites.

The BBC reports:

Ahmed's kidneys, liver, heart and lungs were transplanted into Israelis including Jews, Arabs and a Druse girl, medical officials said.

The girl, aged 12 and from Israel's Bedouin Arab minority, received Ahmed's heart, bringing to an end a five-year wait for a transplant.

Her father, Riad Gadban, called the donation a "gesture of love" and said his daughter was regaining strength after the operation.

Salutations to the boy's parents.

The Rains Return to Chennai

Oh, the rains are back & this time with a vengeance. Been to Neyveli for the weekend & coming back today morning, what do I see except waist-deep water on the Madipakkam 'main' road! There is no road, Dev (colleague, resident of Madipakkam) says boats are out & most parts of Madipakkam are submerged as before. Hmm, don't know what sort of government administration we have. Its exactly like what happened 10 days before. How can they fail people twice like this? They did clean up the canals & drains the last time around (one could see lots of weed being heaped up by backhoes on the road sides) but it seems to have had no effect. Water got clogged ok but I see no activity whatsoever of the authorities taking any steps trying to drain the water even after a day.

Think this time it is worser than the first time as the ground can't absorb more water & the water has to either flow into the sea through the storm drains or evaporate. Am yet to go to my house & plan to camp in our office as before with thoughts dreading the worst - of water entering the house & spoiling everything thats there :-(

Thankfully, wife & child are still in Neyveli. Rethinking on whether they should be brought back as planned or to extend their stay there. Hmm, the rain has stopped since morning but its still cloudy with forecasts of rain for the next 24 hours. Enough God, no more rains please.